“The ocean is the most terrifying thing in our world.
Despite the constant alien invasions, super-powered samurai, and amoral corporations doing everything they can to cause chaos, nothing compares to the hostility of the waves. Yet, the ocean is humanity’s lifeline, the most important asset to our survival. It leaves little doubt in my mind as to why the humans of the past worshipped it.
Personally, it makes me rather anxious.”
* Olivia ‘Zealot’ Meier, during a interview with Samulyfe, June 2050
***
For a moment after the impact, as I float there above the deck of our ship, the world seems frozen. Nobody around me moves, neither the four other figures besides Desmond and Starfall nor the girls behind me. The pin prick feeling of their eyes piercing through me is disconcerting, but I don’t move, unwilling to give up the advantage I just gained.
“Ha.” Standing up straight, Desmond spits out a tooth, which clatters against the deck. “I know I trained you, but I really didn’t expect you to do that.”
I bite my lip for a moment, then slowly utter, “I have a lot of questions, and I want you to answer them for me.”
Desmond huffs, raising up his slowly clenching fist. “There is no world where I answer any of your questions without first giving my granddaughter what she’s due.”
Flinching back a bit as he takes a step forward, I realize how foolish what I just did was. Slapping a first gen samurai? With my tail?! Do I want to be killed? I don’t think so but-
Before my train of thought can continue, Starfall floats forward, raising both her hand and a ball of energy that forms around Desmond off of the ground. “Stand down, mongrel. After what she’s been through, I think she deserves the answers she seeks.”
“Dammit, woman! This is between me and her!” Desmond punches the inside of the orb, but it doesn’t seem to do anything. “Let me go!”
Clicking her tongue, the woman jostles the man around a bit. “Calm yourself, dumbass. I’ll free you, on the condition you do not attack her.”
“Fucking-” Throwing his hands up in the air, Desmond growls through his teeth, “Fine! I won’t touch a hair on her. Let me down.”
With a chuckle, she does just that. “See, that wasn’t so hard.”
For a short second, I stare at this absurd scene in front of me, completely dumbfounded at the ease at which Starfall restrains him. My attention immediately shifts however as Emme walks up, then slips her hand around mine and squeezes.
“Well, today is starting off entirely strange.” She quietly giggles, and my heart does a little flip at the harmonious noise. “If you told me yesterday I’d see Steel Hound being played around with like this, I’d probably laugh and call you an idiot.”
As everyone else approaches, it becomes clear that there are three distinct factions here at the moment. Moving to stand behind Desmond are Haifisch, in all his sharky glory, and my brother. Beside Starfall stands two figures I can immediately tell are samurai, between the fact one is just a golden baby angel thing and the other has pitch black cybernetics that intimidate me a bit. Emme squeezes my hand again, and Lissa walks up to stand beside her.
The Monteros, The Family, and us.
…
Whoever we are, I guess.
Annoyingly, two hushed conversations arise amongst the other groups, quiet enough that we can’t make out the words, but loud enough that you can tell they’re discussing something between themselves. We’re forced to just stand there and wait for them to approach, and we do just that for a long thirty seconds. At least, until Emme seemingly gets impatient.
She takes a deep breath, then releases my hand as she drifts away from me, slowly entering onto center stage. With each step she takes, her gait shifts from the tired drudge she began with into a confident, bouncy stride. A hush falls over the deck once again as she positions herself right in the middle of everyone, then performs a deep bow. Slowly she rises, and once her back is ramrod straight, she boldly announces:
“Welcome aboard the Starchaser, everyone! We on the crew are delighted to have you aboard, but you’ll have to pardon our lack of pleasantries at the moment. You’ve caught us after a particularly… rough night.”
Starfall snorts as she turns towards the frozen crater, then responds, “Sure, I don't see any issue. Care to introduce yourselves before we get started?”
Taking a step back, Emme throws a hand up in the air as she flamboyantly declares, “I have been graced with the name of Limelight, but my two lovely companions are; The magnificent mermaid Ghost-light and the secretive Shadow-”
“Phantasmagoria.” Lissa cuts in, sounding completely exasperated.
Emme chuckles under her breath as she repeats, “And the passionate performer Phantasmagoria!”
Emme does a little spin as she turns back towards us, taking a few steps before she looks over her shoulder and asks, “Now that we have that done, perhaps you all can share your identities as well?”
The man with the biggest ego begins to grumble, “How do you not know who I am? I’m Desm-”
Emme cuts him off, a sheer amount of disdain in her tone.
“We’re from New Houston, we know. I was asking the other, more interesting group.”
As Desmond blubbers a bit, the woman with black cybernetics steps forward, putting a hand on her hip.
“Ha! I like this girl!” She throws a hand over her shoulder at the two other samurai behind her. “The woman in the chair pretending like she’s better than everyone is Starfall, and the gold gremlin is Illuminati. My name is Zealot, I’ll do the talking because neither of these twerps have a good speaking record.”
Starfall moves her chair forward a bit, bumping into Zealot’s back. “I have a fine speaking record, and don’t lump me in with Lumi, I’m in my sixties.”
The cherub shrugs at that, moving over to sit in the older woman’s lap. Zealot cracks her knuckles, then crosses her arms as she asks:
“Okay, shoot kiddo. What questions do you have exactly?”
Emme turns towards me, and I nod to her. We both likely have the same questions anyways, so it’s fine if she talks for all of us.
“Well… First and foremost, I suppose would be…” Emme jerks around, throwing her hands out behind her. “What the fuck took you so long to get here?!”
Desmond immediately answers as he takes a step forward. “We were in space. It takes time to get there and back.”
Putting her hands on her hips, Emme straightens her back to attempt to match up with the man. “Bullshit. I know samurai have quick ways up and down. There’d be no point otherwise.
As Desmond starts to refute her point, Starfall sighs, pushing her face into her palm as she puts a forcefield over his mouth. “As much as I hate to admit it, this one is on me.”
Emme pauses, then takes a step back. “Pardon?”
“I…” With a deep sigh, the woman reaches up to scratch the back of her neck. “I may have muted all alerts, including incursion warnings, in the conference room when I was trying to explain a classified topic to the Monteros.”
There’s a silence for a moment, before Lissa loudly puts it into a set of words that makes sense. “What the fuck?! Why the hell would you mute ALL alerts?!”
“The issue at hand is potentially more dangerous and important than any terrestrial incursion,” Starfall points towards Desmond, who nervously shifts a bit at the gesture. “And that man wouldn’t have listened otherwise!”
Zealot lightly waps Starfall over the back of her head, before softly explaining, “I know you didn’t tell me he was there because of our past, but that doesn’t mean you can just do something stupid like that. THIS is why I call you twerp, Gabbie.”
“But…” Starfall rubs the back of her head. “You’re right, I’m sorry. Probably should have had Monye warn me about it, but hindsight is twenty twenty.”
Emme turns towards the frozen remnants of our once home. “I’m not sure sorry makes up for the amount of lives lost last night.”
Starfall tightly clenches the armrests of her chair. “I know. I’ll take responsibility for it all. Send me control of the submarine when you get a chance and I’ll make sure it’s taken care of.”
Emme gives a thumbs up, then turns to Desmond. “Next, you three idiots. What the fuck was Project Davy Jones?”
Desmond huffs, putting his arms behind his back. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Visibly annoyed by the deflection, Emme throws a hand towards the icy pit. “This! This was Project Davy Jones! A lab on the twelfth where Montero-Wisteria Labs were conducting some kind of sick live Antithesis research! I saw the way they grafted the alien parts onto those people. I will never be able to forget that image.”
“Wha-” Desmond turns towards Tristan, who just shrugs, then back to Emme. The incredulous tone he takes takes me a bit aback. “You’re not fucking with me right?”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Emme takes a deep breath, then nods. The veins in the man’s neck visibly thicken as his arms drop to his side.
“They were doing that scale of xenobiology research?! IN MY CITY?!” I can almost feel his bloodlust as he begins to storm towards the shuttle he arrived in. “I’ll fucking KILL THEM!”
A wall of energy appears in front of him, blocking his retreat. Starfall floats over as she states:
“Not so fast. They’re not done asking questions yet.”
The man hits the bottom of his fist against the wall, and as he responds, his voice is shaking with rage. “One. more.”
Realizing I may not get another chance, I swim forward and put a hand on Emme’s shoulder. She turns to me, and though I get a split second glimpse of her eyes once again, I move past her til’ I am just behind the man who defined my life until today. I open my mouth to talk, but no words come out at first. Then, I force them to materialize, regardless of my stutter.
“W-Who is my biological mother?”
The sigh that the man emits is just so exasperated.
“I suppose it’d be the maid that is always standing by your fool of a father. Marianne, I think her name was?” The man in front of me chuckles ruefully, tapping his foot impatiently against the ground. “Though, I suppose after everything they did to you while you were in the womb, it’d be a bit muddled. I honestly couldn’t care less, it only matters you have my blood, and that’s what makes you important.”
As I momentarily pause to comprehend all of that, Emme grabs my hand again, bluntly exclaiming:
“You’re a fool, Desmond Montero.”
Suddenly, the air around us goes stale, and the man in front of us goes perfectly still.
“Do you want to repeat that, maid?”
“You. Are. A. Fool.”
Emme pulls me down, pulling me into a hug as she explains:
“Despite what people like you say, we as humans have the freedom to choose our own families. Blood doesn't mean jackshit, beyond indicating who brought you into existence.”
Desmond is ominously silent for a moment, before drawing his sword from his sheath as he quietly asks, “Is that an ideal you’d die for?”
Emme pushes me behind her, then steps forward to meet him tit for tat. There is no hesitation in her response.
“Gladly.”
Desmond tosses the sheath away, holding his sword out to his side as he begins to approach. “Let’s see if that’s true.”
It’s nearly silent as they approach each other, no noise beyond the heavy thunk of Desmond's boots against wood and Emme’s calm breaths seeming to come from anywhere nearby. I nervously glance towards the other samurai, but not even Lissa seems to move to intervene. Biting my lip, after a moment I resolve myself and start to move forwards.
Only to see how in one swift movement, Desmond stabs his sword all the way through Emme’s stomach.
My mind goes utterly blank as I look upon the scene, the old sword the old man has wielded as long as I’ve known him visibly sticking partially out of her back. It swiftly retreats from view though, as my former grandfather callously pushes my partner off of his blade with his foot. She stumbles back a few feet, clutching her stomach, but doesn’t fall over.
Her entire body trembling, Emme then flips the man off before she falls backwards, a pool of blood beginning to pool around her body.
He just deeply exhales, holding the crimson soaked blade up to the sunrise.
“I suppose you were not bluffing, then. Respectable.”
I’ll fucking kill him.
The world dims, and my consciousness shatters.
----------------------------------------
You’re a fucking idiot.
Achys’ words echo in my mind as I fall onto my ass, the burning pit in my stomach quickly being covered by new viral flesh. I don’t think it’s a permanent fix, but it works for now.
I can’t help but grin as I intone, ‘Maybe, but fuck him. There was no way they actually let him kill me.’
It’s not him I’m worried about.
Frowning, I start to say something, only for a white flash to enter my vision.
Prism.
‘Oh no.’
The usually timid mermaid once again rushes at her former grandfather, but something is very, very different this time. She’s visibly changed. Her scales have grown out to cover nearly the entirety of her arms and neck. As she opens her fists, it becomes clear that she has grown thick claws with the same material as the scales as well.
She lashes out with a speed incomparable to the first time she did this, raking her claws across his face before he can even react. He visibly heals as he reaches up to touch his face in shock, only for Prism to stab her fingers forward, stabbing into his throat and ripping out his jugular. Seemingly not going to die from just that, Desmond reaches out and grabs one of Prism’s arms, but she breaks free, shifting back a few feet.
She’s still as sharp as ever in this frenzied state, but I don’t think she can win this.
Flinching as I see Desmond slash at Prism with his blade, I mutter, ‘Quick, I need something to help me up, I have to stop her.’
Got it.
I catch the injector, stab myself, then shakily stand back up. As I do, Lissa gently puts her hand on my back, and I turn to her to find that she’s looking up in fear at the raging mermaid.
“Emme, what is she?”
I scowl up at my sister as I respond, “She’s Prism, and always will be.”
I chuckle under my breath, then put my hand out again.
“Achys, I need something that will knock her out without killing her.”
Are you sure? This might be something that you can resolve peacefully.
I nod, wincing at the pain in my stomach. “I suppose you could call it a gut feeling.”
Right, so those are always so accurate.
I hobble forward as a large hammer drops into my hand, only to see that the fight has drifted farther away. Steel Hound has fallen over rather pathetically, and every time he tries to get back up, Prism knocks him back down to maul at him some more. Before I can get close, though, Haifisch does.
The huge shark man, who sort of looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger if he was a Nazi shark on steroids, rushes to get Prism off his mentor. He grabs her shoulder, and immediately, Prism’s target swaps to him. She slips out of his grasp, going low as she dives underneath his legs, where she slashes the back of his ankles. He falters for a moment, then heals a bit as he lifts up his foot and stomps it onto Prism’s tail. I wince, but Prism doesn’t even seem to feel it as she begins to rise up behind his back.
As Haifisch tries to turn around to face her, Prism simply shifts to stay mostly in his blind spot, then when she gets high enough she abruptly wraps herself around his head. I pale and start running as I realize what’s about to happen, but it’s far too late. There’s a sickening crack as the mermaid crushes the man's head into paste with her tail. The now headless body collapses to the ground, and Prism once again starts towards the still recovering Steel Hound.
Fortunately, I manage to meet her about halfway there. As I arrive next to her, she doesn’t even seem to react to my presence. Taking it as a sign of good luck, I bite my lip and swing the hammer down, bonking her on the back of the head. She crumples, but I manage to catch her before she hits the ground.
“Eren…”
I glance over to beside me to find the heir to the Montero Conglomerate standing over the very dead samurai’s body, a crestfallen look upon his face. The three family samurai come running over, as does Lissa, all of their faces twisted in a variety of emotions. Steel Hound groans from off to the side, rising up to his knees as his wounds flawlessly heal.
Zealot runs a hand through her silver streaked hair, groaning as she mutters, “I didn’t think the girl would just kill him mercilessly like that… Fuck.”
I sigh, looking down upon Prism’s now serene, though blood-soaked face, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. The scales that grew while she was raging begin to fall off one by one, and her hands revert back to normal before my eyes. I glance at some of the places that she blocked Steel Hounds blade, only to find the scales slightly chipped in places.
“Idiot.” I mutter, then pick her up in my arms, the virus greedily slurping down the blood off of her body before I begin to return to the bridge. Lissa looks up at me in confusion as I begin to move, but still follows me without question regardless.
“Wait!”
I pause, then turn to look back over my shoulder at the heir stomping towards me, his face burning crimson with rage. “He was innocent! All he wanted to do was stop the fight and she just killed him! She needs to pay!”
I scoff, tilting my head. “You sure didn’t say anything when he stabbed me.”
“But you’re just-” Realizing what he’s saying, the heir pales.
“A maid?” I look down at Prism and a small smile appears on my face. “We both are, actually.”
The man looks at me like I’m crazy, then growls in frustration as he starts to turn away.
Ugh. This will fester into something annoying if I leave it, won’t it?
I sigh, then shift Prism to one of my arms while raising the other, sending a tendril spiking through his chest. The heir falls unceremoniously on his face, the impact catching the attention of everyone who hadn’t been paying attention to us.
I resume my exit, but pause to yell, “As captain of the ship, I must inform you all that we’re leaving in five minutes! If you aren’t off the ship by then and aren’t crew, you will be forcibly ejected!”
Nobody says anything.
As we step back inside the ship, I walk up to the stairs, then pause when my sister approaches me, concern on her face. “Emme, are you…”
I put on my best facsimile of a smile, then shake my head. “I need to sleep. Can you go check on our parents?”
“I…” Lissa’s face is pained as she nods. “Yeah, I’ll do that. Rest well.”
I wait until I see Lissa disappear into the side hallway before I begin my ascent, bringing up the floor plan Achys had shared with me earlier. We climb to the very top of the ship, where the captain’s cabin takes up most of the square footage. The room is fairly bare at the moment, with not much more than a large bed situated on a wall facing a huge forward facing window. The sunrise illuminates everything with a warm glow, and I yawn as I place Prism onto the bed, then take a seat beside her.
“Achys, did you pass the submarine to Starfall?”
I did, and the samurai have, albeit reluctantly, taken the bodies and left the ship. They’ve sent requests for communication, but I’ve declined them.
I flop back on the bed, finally feeling the day's exhaustion begin to take hold. “Great. Let’s get the gravity engine then get going.”
I’m assuming you still want the one we talked about earlier?
“Yeah, that’s fine.” I yawn, then wave my hand in the air. “I’m too tired to think too deeply about it anyway.”
Understood.
New Purchase!
7-C Heavy Anti-gravity Engine: 7000 Points
Assault Battery: 200 Points
Quikfix: 20 Points
Total Cost:
7220 Points
Final Total:
1308 Points
There is an audible thump and hum as the engine slots into place and turns on, and I sit up for a moment to look out over the ruined city for the last time. The place I had spent all my life, the people I had grown up around, reduced to scrap metal at the bottom of a frozen ocean. I grind my teeth, then shout, “Achys, set course for the mainland!
Right away, Captain.
Emotion welling up, I throw up my hand to give the order.
“Starchaser, set off!”
There is a rumble and a momentary feeling of weightlessness as the ship breaks free from the ice, slowly rising up into the sky. I flop backwards again, peeking over to look at the peacefully resting mermaid beside me. I huff a little laugh, then pull her into my arms as my exhaustion truly sets in. Achys seems to notice, as the window suddenly is covered up by something and darkness envelops us.
I have one final thought before sleep takes me.
I won’t let her blame herself.